A light emitting diode (LED) lamp (or LED light bulb) is a solid-state lamp that uses LEDs as the source of light. LEDs offer significant advantages over legacy light sources such as incandescent, high-intensity discharge (HID), and fluorescent lamps. These advantages include, but are not limited to, better lighting quality, longer operating life, and lower energy consumption.
LEDs typically utilize direct current (DC) electrical power and, in some cases, may be degraded or damaged by operating at high temperatures. Accordingly, LED lamps typically include heat dissipation elements, such as heat sinks and cooling fins to provide cooling capacity, thus maintaining an LED-based light bulb within a desirable operating temperature.
LED-based lamps are being increasingly used not only in original product designs, but also in products designed to replace legacy light sources in conventional lighting applications. LED lighting devices are normally manufactured with multiple elements. These elements are normally constructed to exacting specifications, but the elements can only be constructed within a certain degree of precision. Therefore, the design of an LED lighting device must be able to tolerate and utilize elements within particular specified dimensions. The design process may become more expensive and complex to allow for those tolerances and the manufactured LED lighting device may include space between internal elements to accommodate for such tolerances.
Such space, as slight as it may be, between the internal elements may reduce stability and structural integrity of the lighting device. This can be problematic, especially when shipping lighting devices, as a physical impact upon the lighting device may cause the internal elements to be damaged by contacting one another.
PCT Patent Application Publication No. WO 2013060060 to Wang (hereafter referred to as “Wang”) discloses an LED bulb-shaped light. The LED bulb-shaped light includes a housing component, an LED circuit component and a lighting circuit component. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0128596 by Lu et al. (hereafter referred to as “Lu”) discloses an LED bulb. The LED bulb includes a connector, a heat sink, a drive circuit and an LED. The body of the bulb is designed with tunnels to improve heat dissipation of the heat sink. However, the LED bulbs of Wang and Lu respectively, each contain the same design flaw that afflicts other LED lights. There is space between the internal elements in the LED bulb.
Accordingly, a need exists for an LED lighting device that can be manufactured, which minimizes space between internal components to enhance the life of the LED lighting device. This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should it be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.